Italy made medical deal over hostages

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Hostages Simona Pari and Simona Torretta after being freed last
year.Photo: AP

ITALIAN doctors smuggled four gravely wounded Iraqi insurgents
past US checkpoints and secretly treated them in a Baghdad hospital
as part of the price to secure the release of two Italian hostages
last year, the outgoing head of the Italian Red Cross has told a
newspaper.

Sick children of insurgents were also flown to Italy to undergo
treatment for leukaemia within days of the release of the "Two
Simonas"  the aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta
 in September last year.

Maurizio Scelli, a central figure in the negotiation for the
release of several Italian hostages, caused controversy by
disclosing to La Stampa that Italy's US allies were
deliberately kept in the dark about his negotiations with the
approval of the Italian Government.

"That the Americans should not know was a non-negotiable
condition imposed by all my Iraqi interlocutors and mediators," he
explained, saying he had received the approval from Gianni Letta, a
senior official in charge of handling the hostage crisis.

As opposition parties demanded that the Government answer
questions in parliament, the office of Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi issued a statement insisting that co-operation
with the US had always been "frank and loyal", and insisted that Mr
Scelli had acted "in full autonomy".

At the time of the women's release, Mr Scelli denied all reports
that the Italian Government had paid a large ransom.

His interview with La Stampa on Thursday did not say
whether cash had changed hands. But he made clear that the Red
Cross had offered a kind of payment in kind, in the form of
"humanitarian" medical assistance.

"The mediators asked us to save the life of four presumed
terrorists wanted by the Americans who had been wounded in
fighting," Mr Scelli told the newspaper.

"The operation was not easy. We had doctors and personnel ready
in Baghdad's hospital, but we had to bring in the wounded without
the Americans finding us out.

"There was another condition. We had to treat four of their
children who were sick with leukaemia and who, if I remember
correctly, arrived in Italy the day after the Two Simonas."